JC ZEBRA AND THE PIG - A BELATED TRIBUTE

JC ZEBRA AND THE PIG - A BELATED TRIBUTE by Whispering Jack

The Victorian Football Association was formed in 1877 and was the major controlling body for football in its formative years. Twenty years later, the stronger sides in the competition withdrew to form the Victorian Football League which ultimately became the nation's premier football competition, now known as the Australian Football League.

However, the VFA continued as a strong, viable and at times thriving competition until late in the 20th century when a number of clubs fell on hard times as a result of the increasing commercialisation of sport in this country. The VFA came under the control of the AFL and in 1996 its name was changed to the Victorian Football League. Four years later, the VFL was merged with AFL reserves competition and a number of AFL clubs made alliances with existing clubs in the VFL. The most successful of these was the union between Melbourne and Sandringham, which began in 2000 and ended last week.

It was through the union that I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of real gentlemen who lived, ate and breathed the Sandringham Football Club. John Carroll and Brian McKenna introduced themselves to me via an invitation made on the Demonland website to visit them at the Sandringham Social Club for drinks in appreciation for some articles that had been written about the Zebras.

My son and I were expecting an official delegation from the club but John and Brian were not exactly what we expected. They were two down to earth blokes who loved Sandy and both had a rather loose affiliation with the club which seemed to start and end with the pulling of the odd ale in the social club. I'll never forget the way they both raised their eyebrows in unison when we ordered our diet cokes while they imbibed in the slightly stronger beverages of their choice. John dismissively described the "stuff" we were drinking as "lolly water."

The pair always watched their team from the same spot in the forward pocket at Trevor Barker Beach Oval and we were invited to join them there "whenever there was a game on." And so we soon became friends and companions at the matches.

John had such a strong passion for history and was working on writing a history of the Zebras. He posted regularly on the site under the name of "jczebra", Brian as "The Pig" and both of them also looked after the Sandringham website. They loved talking about the beauty and the glory of the VFA in "the old days" when the ground would be "packed to the rafters" and they were such strong supporters of the Zebras that they wouldn't hear any criticism of their players. jczebra once boldly predicted that one day Chris Bryan would "make it in the AFL". Bryan was a struggling young ruckman with the Sandy reserves at the time.

I learned in a short space of time how much this unlikely pair epitomised the VFL with its suburban grounds that were open to the elements and where you could lean forward and almost touch the players you were supporting. jczebra introduced us to the famous burraburger at Port Melbourne and the best I could do was to help him out with his historical writing and some advice on how to carry out some of the research for his history.

John was also a bit of a trickster and he would often lean over the fence and give his advice to opposition forwards lining up for goal.

"Left post, sunshine," he would offer and when the ball would inevitably drift the wrong way for a point, he would wink at us mischievously and add,

"Ya shoulda' listened to me, sunshine."

The alliance tasted instant success with Melbourne rising from near the bottom of the ladder to play off against Essendon in the 2000 AFL Grand Final while Sandringham's seniors and reserves both won premiership flags a week earlier. For the rest of the journey, the Zebras tasted more premiership glory in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and only missed out on making the finals in 2001 and 2008. The Demons made the finals in 2002 and 2004-2006.

The clubs also used each other as sources of playing talent during this time. Matthew Warnock, Stefan Martin and Shane Valenti are current Demons who started with Sandy while Guy Rigoni and Chris Lamb moved on to the Zebras when their AFL careers ended. Both played in premiership teams with the Zebras. Of course, a number of different Melbourne players participated in the four Sandringham premierships during the time of the alliance and both clubs also grieved together when Troy Broadbridge was lost in the tsunami.

The two clubs are taking different paths in the future but the nine seasons when they were bound together in their union will not be forgotten and the memories will not always be of what happened on the playing fields.

Unfortunately, jczebra and the pig missed out on the club's golden era under the alliance because neither of them enjoyed good health. Pig went first and I'll never forget the message jczebra sent me to advise that his good mate had collapsed and been taken off life support. John lasted another year and suffered the same fate passing away a sad and lonely man at the start of 2004. How they would have savoured every single glorious moment of each of those three successive grand final victories?

And how will they feel early next autumn when they look down on their patch of grass in the pocket beneath the social club at TBBO and find that their friends have left for (what for them are greener pastures) Casey Fields?

And here's a treat for you boys (if you're looking down on us):-

2000 VFL GRAND FINAL- FIRST HALF HIGHLIGHTS

2000 VFL GRAND FINAL- SECOND HALF HIGHLIGHTS